The Mande Blacksmiths Knowledge, Power, and Art in West Africa [Paperback]

... finely crafted scholarship. Elegant and graceful, yet packed with knowledge and information, it embodies the aesthetic qualities which it describes and explores. American Ethnologist

The text is detailed and informative, and enjoyable reading... Choice

The Mande Blacksmith is an important book... sensitive, sympathetic, multifaceted, and thorough... African Arts

McNaughton's Mande Blacksmiths is undeniably the most profound study of African artists yet published. Ethnoarts

... penetrating... McNaughton boldly grapples with the thorniest issues related to his subject and articulates them with clarity and precision. International Journal of African Historical Studies

... a work in the best tradition of ethnographic research.... critical reappraisal, innovative inquiry, and fresh observation... make this book an invaluable fund of new material on Mande societies... American Anthropologist

McNaughton... provides an important interpretation of these artists' conceptual place as members of a complex culture. Religious Studies Review

Examining the artistic, technological, social, and spiritual dimensions of Mande blacksmiths, who are the sculptors of their society, McNaughton defines these artists conceptual place as extraordinary members of a complex culture.

Preface
Note on Orthography
Acknowledgments

I. Blacksmiths in Mande Society
The Mande Social System
The Nyamakala Special Professionals
Nyamakala and the Smiths Ambiguous Status

II. The Mande Smiths as Craftsmen
Techniques
Products
Articulation

III. Smiths and the Shape of Civilized Space

The Principles of Medicine and Sorcery
A Hierarchy of Practitioners
Rainmaking
Divination
Doctoring
Amulets and Secret Devices
Social Instrumentality
Circumcision
The Relative Roles of Blacksmiths and Hunters

IV. The Blacksmiths Sculpture
The Character of Sculpture and the Other lóú